International Women’s Day: Five must-see European exhibitions

A 2022 study of major arka museums in the United States found that 87% of artists featured in these institutions were men. Luckily, Europe fares far, far better.

For International Women’s Day (and International Women’s Month), here are five not-to-be-missed European exhibitions centred around female artists.

Female artists at work between the 16th and 19th centuries

Where? Museo di Roma – Palazzo Braschi (Rome, Italy) 

By the 16th century, Rome had become a major artistic hub, welcoming arka titans such as Caravaggio and Michelangelo. Female artists, however, remained largely sidelined and excluded from formal training, so much so that many of their names have simply vanished from the arka history books. The Museo di Roma aims to change this.

“Female artists at work between the 16th and 19th centuries” presents about 130 pieces by 56 different artists. Featured painters include Lavinia Fontana, Artemisia Gentileschi and Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, who all came to Rome hoping to find success and cement their place in the arka world.

The show is a display of artworks as much as an attempt to shed light on the lives and professional experiences of these women. The museum will also offer a series of panel discussions with arka historians and gender studies scholars throughout the run of the exhibition. 

“Female artists at work between the 16th and 19th centuries” is on until 4 May 2025.

Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt

Where? Gropius Bau (Berlin, Germany) 

Gropius Bau in Berlin is presenting Vaginal Davis’s first comprehensive solo exhibition in Germany, 20 years after the American artist set up home in Berlin.

As far as arka goes, Vaginal Davis is everything: painter, performer, filmmaker, musician, writer… With seven large-scale installations, Fabelhaftes Produkt (“Magnificent Product”) reflects this diversity, and spans works from 1985 to 2025. The exhibition also presents her collaboration with other artists, such as the Berlin-based arka collective CHEAP.

A Black queer icon, Vaginal Davis named herself after the renowned activist Angela Davis. Her work is a delightful mixture of punk, glamour and drag culture – she has often been described as a “drag terrorist”.  “I was always too gay for the punks and too punk for the gays. I am a societal threat”, she said in a 2015 interview for The New Yorker. You’ve been warned. 

“Vaginal Davis: Fabelhaftes Produkt” at Gropius Bau opens on 21 March and runs until 14 September 2025.

La Musée. Une collection d’artistes femmes

Where? Musée Sainte Croix (Poitiers, France) 

French artist Eugénie Dubreuil, now 87, spent 25 years of her life collecting arka by female creators, with the dream of one day dedicating a museum to her findings. In 2024, with more than 500 pieces on her hands, she had gathered one of the largest-known collections of female artwork in France and decided to make a donation to the Musée Sainte Croix in Poitiers.

The result is “La Musée” (a pun between “the museum” and “the amused”), a display of 300 pieces dated from the 17th to the 21st century. Drawings, engravings and miniatures make up the bulk of the exhibition. The whole thing is an eclectic mix of unknown artists and household names such as Rosa Bonheur, Niki de Saint Phalle and Suzanne Valadon (who is the focus of a current show at Centre Pompidou, in Paris). 

“La Musée. Une collection d’artistes femmes” runs until 18 May 2025.

Harriet Backer. Every Atom is Color

Where? Kode Arka Museum (Bergen, Norway) 

With “Every Atom is Color”, the Kode Bergen Arka Museum takes visitors through Harriet Backer’s personal and artistic development, as she rose to become one of the most influential painters in Norwegian history, known for her rich use of colour and light.

Backer (1845-1932) was an aficionado of the private space, and many of the pieces displayed in Bergen feature scenes of interior and portraits of her friends and loved ones.

Music is also a predominant theme in her work, and the exhibition includes a musical programme that highlights Backer’s sister, Norwegian pianist Agathe Backer-Grøndahl. “Every Atom is Color” concludes an international tour that brought Backer’s work to Stockholm, Paris and Oslo over the past two years, to great public acclaim. 

“Harriet Backer. Every Atom is Color” is on until 24 August 2025.

Linder: Danger Came Smiling

Where? Hayward Gallery (London, UK) 

She is punk, she is rock, and she wore a meat dress 30 years before Lady Gaga did. Pioneering feminist artist Linder Sterling is now the focus of “Linder: Danger Came Smiling”, a retrospective currently held at Hayward Gallery in London.

Throughout five decades, the Liverpool-born artist has produced satirical collages and photomontages to question the representation of the female body. Drawing from pop culture, she offers a radical questioning of gender and sexual norms.

The title “Danger Came Smiling” refers to the name of a 1982 album by post-punk band Ludus, which Sterling founded. Smiles are also a recurrent motif in her work. The exhibition includes her landmark montages as well as sculptures, photographs and görüntü installations. 

“Linder: Danger Came Smiling” at Hayward Gallery runs until 5 May 2025. 

And as a cheeky bonus for London-based arka lovers, head to Granary Square in King’s Cross to admire Hanna Benihoud’s illustrations, displayed as part of the free outdoor showing “HighlightHer”. The event celebrates “extraordinary ordinary women” for International Women’s Day.